


Never an Honest Day's Work is Done

by sister_coyote



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Community: yaoi_challenge, Elemental Magic, M/M, Missionfic, OrgXIII, Rivalsex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-17
Updated: 2007-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-06 08:20:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/pseuds/sister_coyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luxord and Xigbar debate whose approach to the problem should be used.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never an Honest Day's Work is Done

It didn't surprise Xigbar, when he got the assignment, to find out that Luxord had already left. Luxord took great pride in being one step ahead of everyone. He also had a serious unfair advantage in that department. (Xigbar approved. Having an unfair advantage and _not_ taking advantage of it wasn't noble, it was just stupid.)

Despite his advantage, however, it wasn't hard to find Luxord. For all his high-class accent and glass-smooth style, Luxord preferred the worst sort of bar: the kind of place where the drinks would rot your gut, the girls would pick your pocket, and the locals would rough you up if you so much as looked at them sideways. Fortunately, that was the kind of bar Xigbar preferred, too, because he could choose to have a fight if he wanted, or not if he didn't want. Even the local toughs rarely picked the guy with an eyepatch and a face full of scars as an easy mark.

This particular dive featured low tables surrounded by cushions, and sweet spiced liquor served in ivory cups, and dancing-girls wearing little more than scarves, and incense mingling with narcotic smoke so thick on the air you could very nearly get high just from _breathing_. He found Luxord toward the back, holding court with a man who was a snake from his waist down and a woman with jackal ears as they played a variant on the game Xigbar knew as Five Houses.

"Joining us?" Luxord asked, one eyebrow arched and his hand extended, fingers curling upward. In his hand was a card: the Apple of the Moon Garden. Xigbar was sure it had some symbolic meaning, but damned if he knew what.

"What the hell," he said. "Sure, deal me in." He threw a copper coin into the pot and settled himself cross-legged on one of the cushions.

"You know each other?" asked the serpent-man, tasting the air. An obvious question, as they both wore their black robes.

"We belong to the same order," Luxord said, "but I've never met this particular gentleman, I don't believe." His hands moved quick and fluid as he dealt six cards to each of them.

Xigbar didn't expect to win—Five Houses wasn't one of his strongest games, and at any rate he had no expectation of beating Luxord unless Luxord wanted him to, any more than Luxord would try to take him on at target practice or designing a clockwork engine. Instead he admired the skill with which Luxord played the other two, convincing them with subtle word and gesture that they were high-rollers and card sharps even as he raked in a consistently higher take than either of them.

The serpent-man and jackal-woman left, eventually. The cards rippled beneath Luxord's fingers as he shuffled them, cut them, shuffled them. "Before you shoot first and ask questions later," he said in an undertone, "know that the ifrit is _mine_ to deal with."

"What makes you think I'm gonna 'shoot first'?"

The dim light caught the edges of Luxord's smile. The cards vanished. "It's your usual modus operandi, isn't it?"

Xigbar felt a flash of irritation, and forced himself to quell it. "I ain't subtle," he said, "but I also ain't stupid. Not stupid enough to let you goad me into proving your point, anyway. An' I'm not going to stand back and let you have all the fun."

"I daresay we have different ideas of fun, you and I."

"More alike'n you think," Xigbar said. "You like cards, I like darts. We both like booze and getting laid."

"Charmingly put," Luxord said smoothly, "as always."

Xigbar shrugged. "Don't see much purpose in mincing words. Not like I can hurt your tender feelings."

"Mm. Well, stupid you may not be, but subtlety is assuredly not one of your virtues. I'm not sure I trust you to take the lead in this."

"An' I'm not sure I want to wait for whatever complicated plan you think you're going to put in practice."

Two ivory dice appeared in Luxord's palm. "Then I'll roll you for it."

"Nah," Xigbar said. "I don't trust you with dice." He pulled one of the local copper coins from his sleeve. "Heads I take the lead, tails it's all you. Yeah?"

"Flip, then," said Luxord. Xigbar rolled the coin onto his thumb and sent it spinning upward.

The feeling in the air changed, and the coin's tumble suddenly slowed as time warped around it. Well, two could play at that game. Xigbar tweaked gravity so that the coin spun even more sluggishly. Luxord did something else that made the coin ripple on the air, frozen for a moment. They locked eyes across the table, the coin hovering between them. Xigbar curled his lip and mentally _yanked_.

The coin hit the table on its edge, and remained there, poised. Xigbar stared at it, then began to laugh. "Tiebreaker?"

Luxord lifted one eyebrow, elegantly. "I assume you have something in mind?"

Xigbar gave him a deliberately slow, wolfish grin.

The bar had a few rooms to let, of the kind that one only rented in extremity—either extremity of exhaustion of extremity of lust. Xigbar banged the door shut with his elbow and slammed Luxord up against the wall with a well-placed twist of gravity. He watched muscles move under Luxord's cloak as he tried, unsuccessfully, to free himself. Then Luxord relaxed, and said, "Fighting dirty, I see."

"No other way to fight," Xigbar said, "if you want to win."

"If that's your philosophy . . . " Luxord said, and then the room rippled. Xigbar's head spun, and he put a hand on the wall to get his balance—or tried to; but his hand _crawled_ as it stretched out, slow as honey and sluggish as a fever. He put a little more force behind it—and then the room rippled again and everything went back to normal, and he overbalanced and stumbled.

He hardly _ever_ stumbled.

He'd lost his grip on Luxord. Luxord didn't disappoint: he took advantage of Xigbar's off-balance moment and moved with shocking, probably-not-natural speed to knock him backwards and pin him to the bed.

"Time to end this." Luxord's teeth flashed in the lamplight.

"Oh, I don't think we're at the stopping place just yet," Xigbar countered. He levered Luxord up with his knee, weakening the pull of gravity so he tumbled over in slow-motion freefall, and wound up on top, pinning Luxord between his knees. "Unless you have less stamina than I'd thought."

"Oh," Luxord said, "I could go on all day. It's _you_ I'm worried about."

Xigbar pulled down the zipper of Luxord's cloak with a minimum of fuss. Beneath it, Luxord wore nothing but boots and gloves, and—yes, he was hard, hard as hell and glistening at the tip. Xigbar licked his lips. "I can't match you for timing, s'true," he said, "but there ain't no match for me for knowing all the right _places_. And the careful application of force and . . . " He slid his hand down to Luxord's cock and stroked hard, " . . . pressure."

Luxord arched, rolling his hips, his eyes half-closed. Xigbar paused, and after a moment Luxord opened his eyes and cocked an eyebrow. "Well?" he said. "Or was that all _talk_?"

Xigbar shed his own cloak, trousers, and Luxord pulled something out of one of the pockets of his cloak—a little bottle of oil—and then his hand closed slick over Xigbar's length. Xigbar growled. "You're prepared."

"Complaining?"

"Nope."

Luxord drew his knees up, and Xigbar slid his fingers in, slicked with oil but without any warning. A little rough—but the noise Luxord made was definitely not a complaint.

He was ready, Xigbar figured after a few thrusts, or at any rate ready _enough_. He shifted to settle between Luxord's legs and pushed in, slow but hard. Tight heat, the deep throb and pulse that had nothing to do with heartbeat and everything to do with the pound of blood—he caught his breath, tilting his head back.

Luxord tangled one hand in the tail Xigbar's hair, where it fell over his shoulder, knotting it around his knuckles. He tugged once, hard. "Don't disappoint, Number Two," he said.

Xigbar ground his hips. "Never do." He tightened a loop of gravity around Luxord's other hand, pinning it to the bed. The muscles flexed in Luxord's arm, and then he—

— slowed Xigbar down, so that every movement was like something in a dream, and his skin crawled with impatience, tight heat and he couldn't move faster, and he heard Luxord laughing—

— and then time returned to normal, and he said, "You want to play _that_ way."

And Luxord said, "Of course."

So he put a little extra force behind each thrust, taking it as hard as he wanted, as fast. The muscles tightened in Luxord's chest and stomach and Xigbar's own stomach flipped. He reached between them and wrapped his gloved hand around Luxord's cock, stroked hard once, twice.

"You do go fast," Luxord said, "as I predicted."

"You wanted it in your own time, shoulda just jerked yourself off," Xigbar panted. "Things change when you apply some pressure." His blood simmered, tension rising, and he held off because if he came before Luxord he was _never_ going to live it down.

"Indeed," Luxord said, "they do," and the tendons stood out in his neck, and then he came over Xigbar's hand.

Xigbar held out for a few more thrusts as much to prove he could as for any other reason. But patience wasn't his virtue, and he bit his lip hard and shuddered and came hard.

He pulled off after a moment, wiping his stained glove on the bedsheet. Luxord sighed, then rolled over and sat up. "A pleasant enough diversion," he said, "but it doesn't solve the fundamental problem."

"Eh," Xigbar said, "we'll work it out."

Luxord's mouth twitched, something wry, not quite a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Tomblands," by the Libertines.


End file.
